Mark Sennen - Touch

‘Kelly Donal’s brain,’ Nesbit said. ‘Before I return the brain to the skull cavity I will take some sections for analysis. I believe the cell structure will have been altered by the freezing process although I don’t think a method exists to tell us how long the body has been frozen. However, I have a couple of ideas that need a bit of work. I’ll get back to you on them.’

Nesbit returned to the body and bent forward and sniffed the torso, gesturing at Savage to do the same.

‘I found no other outward signs of insect infestation because the body has been washed at some point, you can smell the soap.’

Savage moved to the body and bent over. The girl’s left breast was a few inches away from her face and for a moment Savage found herself looking at the body through the killer’s eyes. Those curves, the flat, toned stomach leading to an enticing triangle of pubic hair, the smooth thighs and shapely calves. What man would pass up the opportunity to be close to such perfection? To kiss the body all over, to caress the skin, to wonder at the beauty and finally to penetrate it, afterwards holding the flesh close in the exhaustion of post-orgasmic bliss.

‘Charlotte?’

Savage snapped back into the awkwardness of reality, aware of Nesbit’s stare.

‘Yes, I think you are right. Soap.’

‘Now then, toxicology. I’ve dispatched some blood and hair to the lab to ascertain if there is any evidence of drugs or poisoning. There are some needle marks on her right and left arms, so she was a user, but my initial judgement is we won’t find anything in that arena responsible for her death. I believe she died of hypothermia.’

‘Exposure?’

‘Not in the sense of being outside. The freezing I talked about a moment ago? That was what killed her.’

‘She was frozen to death?’

‘I can’t say the manner of her death will bring any comfort to the family, but there are worse ways to go.’

‘But deep frozen…’

‘Yes, she would have been shut in a freezer. Alive. If you remember at the scene I showed you the lividity in the buttocks and thighs and concluded she had been in a sitting position.’

‘Oh God.’ Savage sometimes got claustrophobic in an aeroplane or if she was wedged under her sports car fixing something, but being shut in a small box and left to die was a horror of a different order of magnitude.

‘I am not finished yet, I’m afraid.’

She had hoped they were nearing the end, but Nesbit looked so pleased with himself she didn’t voice her feelings.

‘A few more interesting points. The last of which I don’t think you are going to like.’

‘Go on.’

‘First, I found a few black hairs, obviously not from the girl. They’ve gone for analysis. Second, the stomach and intestine contents are of interest. The girl liked fruit.’

‘Sorry?’

‘Here.’ Nesbit went to the bench again. Next to the jar containing Kelly’s brain was a smaller container. ‘Apples, pears, bananas, apricots, grapes. The girl ate nothing else for at least a couple of days before her death.’

‘What are you saying?’

‘I am not saying anything, Charlotte. Merely pointing out the facts.’

‘Anything else?’

‘Ah, yes,’ Nesbit paused and sighed. ‘This is the bit I don’t think that you are going to like.’

‘Go on.’

‘Now look at this.’ Nesbit took a fresh pair of forceps and pointed down between the girl’s thighs. He teased her pubic hairs apart. ‘There!’

‘Where?’

‘Labia majora. Can you spot the marks?’ He pointed with his forceps and now Savage could see some little pin pricks in the skin, a row on each side.

‘She was sewn up. Rather crudely I should say. I took some photos before I removed the thread and you will note the stitches are all different sizes, not a skilful job at all.’

‘Jesus,’ Savage muttered under her breath. ‘That’s pretty sick.’

‘Disturbing, certainly. As to whether the person who did this is sick, well, psychology is not my field of expertise.’

‘It’s not mine either, but let’s agree it is not something you or I would consider doing.’

‘No, probably not.’ Nesbit smiled before continuing. ‘There is also evidence of sexual activity, lubricant, and a large quantity of semen.’

‘More than one man?’

‘We will know after the lab have done their bit. She had intercourse multiple times though.’

‘Did the sex happen while she was alive or after she was dead?’

‘I can’t tell, although she was sewn up after she was dead.’

‘Well, I’m not surprised, I mean, we-’

‘Oh, there’s more I am afraid, Charlotte.’ Nesbit went over to a lab bench and picked up a polygrip bag. ‘I discovered this rolled up and inserted vaginally into the girl, after she was unconscious I would say. It was pushed up deep in the canal, possibly by the man’s penis.’

Savage moved closer to see what he had in his hand and Nesbit gave her the bag. It contained a piece of curled up paper. The outside was plain white and on the inside was a picture, but the ink had run forming a whirl of colour similar to a toddler’s drawing.

‘Yes, I couldn’t tell what it was at first either. Gently flatten the paper and you’ll understand.’

Savage did so and a chill spread from her stomach, seeping up through her chest and then running down her arms to her fingertips. Although the ink had discoloured the paper she could now make out an image. Her fingers began to tingle and a dizzy sensation washed over her.

‘Jesus Christ! It’s-’

‘Yes, it is.’ Nesbit spoke with a soft tone and took the bag from her shaking hand. ‘I’ve already had a few copies made so you can take one with you when you go.’

Nesbit’s voice disappeared behind a rumble and her ears filled with a noise like the sound the winter storm waves made when they crashed onto the beach below her house and turned the pebbles over and over on themselves. It was a roaring, hissing, grinding sound of pure power, of chaotic elemental forces trying to tear at the foundations of the earth and destroy the fragile fabric of life. Not a one-off assault that would destroy it in a day, but an ongoing war of attrition persisting over years and decades and centuries. Slowly, but oh-so-surely it succeeded. Every person who ever breathed turned into someone else’s memories, those memories into footnotes in a history book, the book itself into a crumbling artefact whose own decay told the whole story of human existence.

‘Charlotte?’ Nesbit handed her the autopsy papers and put a comforting hand on her shoulder. ‘I know this doesn’t seem to make any sense right now, but you’ll get him, I’m sure you will.’

Savage nodded an acceptance to Nesbit, muttered some words of thanks and turned and walked out of the lab, up the stairs and through the maze of corridors. She wandered, lost in her thoughts, everything else a blur: figures in long, white coats, nurses in blue uniforms, patients grey with despair, colour in a black and white world. Birth and illness and death. The story started here and for most the end came here too. For some, like Kelly, it ended on a slab of cold stainless steel with your organs in a jar, bodily fluids flushed down the drain and your name in a headline in a newspaper.

And then Savage thought of Clarissa, her daughter. A picnic on Dartmoor by a roadside stream and the twins playing on their bikes. The sound of a car coming fast, the ding-ding of the little bell on Clarissa’s bike and the nauseating crunch of the smash. Hit and run. Ambulance. Hospital. Her daughter’s blank face white, framed with the vivid, contrasting red of her hair, Savage’s hair. And Savage noticing Clarissa’s eyes, lids taped shut. In some odd way that had hurt the most, realising Clarissa would never see her again, never have the comfort of knowing her mother was at her bedside. But the doctors said even if her eyes had been open she wouldn’t have recognised anyone. She was gone, only the machines keeping her alive. Then it was decision time. The most difficult of Savage’s life. Once made, electrodes had been detached, tubes pulled out, a last rasp of air escaping from Clarissa’s lungs. The words from the nurse as delicate as an angel’s whisper.